Saturday, August 15, 2015

Buster Posey Rookie Run

After picking up the 2010 Topps Emerald Nut set a little while back I decided to do a check and see if I had every Buster Posey card with the rookie logo in my collection. Posey is having another great year and seems to be in the MVP discussion. Typical discussions about the best catcher in baseball have typically started with Yadier Molina due in large part to his defensive prowess but with the newer stat of pitch framing Buster is getting quite a bit of credit for his defense and pitching staff management and coupled with his offense has propelled himself to the top of the MLB catcher class.

In looking through the Beckett checklist, my collection and my knowledge of some of the other sets out there, I set my sights on obtaining the Giants 2010 team set. These are the sets that are package together, usually with 17 cards, and sold at retail outlets. Starting in 2011 I was able to pick these up as they came out but missed the 2010 set. I suspected the Buster rookie drove the rarity and price of the pack but I didn't know if the rookie logo was on the card or not. I decided to try and track down a pack and find out.

I was lucky enough to find one with damaged packaging, put in an offer on eBay and was able to bring this home.

The packaging didn't really bother me as the cards are in a plastic case and I planned on opening them anyway. Here are the 17 cards in the set:

I showed the back of the Posey card to demonstrate how the backs are different only in the numbering. Each card number starts with SFG and ends with the numbers 1-17. Plus you will see the Posey front down below.

One of the fun things with these cards is to see which card feature different photos or cropping from the original. In this case over 1/3 of the cards are different, 6/17. Here are their Topps flagship counterparts:

All but the Matt Cain feature completely different photos. The Cain is just cropped much more tightly. I wish they would put all different photos in these, they would become much more collectible in my opinion.

After getting these cards, I decided to see if I had all the Posey base cards that have the Rookie Logo. I did a Beckett search, flipped through my binder and did a scan of eBay and outside of the Finest Letterman Auto cards (even though they have the RC logo there is no way in my book an autographed card should be counted as a rookie), I think I have the complete run.

Here are the 15 Buster Posey rookie cards in my collection:

He has 5 different Bowman base rookies, the Sterling is the newest and partners with the Bowman card as my favorites in this scan.

This scan has 3 with the same photo and design. The only difference between the Topps flagship card an the new team set card I just received is the positioning of the Topps foil at the top, it switches corners. My favorite here is the Ginter cards and is actually one of my favorite Ginter cards of all time. I don't have any of the minis and would guess they cost a pretty penny but I think I may see if I can get lucky.

Here are the final 5. The Opening Day card looks familiar, huh? The Topps Chrome card was a mail in redemption as he wasn't included in the regular set. In addition to the National Chicle RC card, Buster has an SP with a 1952 Design - also a great looking card but it doesn't have the logo and doesn't make this post. The Upper Deck card is nice and clearly illustrates why MLB and Topps had a beef with Upper Deck's lame attempt at no logos, you can see the SF on his helmet and part of the Giants on his jersey - there is no effort to airbrush them out. For my tastes, this is the best looking group of the 3.

I am happy to have the full rookie run of one of my favorite Giants. Might be time to see how my MadBum collection stacks up.

About Me

I am an avid sports card collector and enjoy building sets, team collecting and player collecting. This blog is my attempt to dive deeper into the blog world to rid myself of cards that don't fit into my collection and add gems that do.